The popularity and utilization of mobile app-based transportation matching systems has grown significantly in recent years. Through a transportation matching system, a requestor utilizes a requestor computing device to generate and send a transportation request including a pickup location and destination location (e.g., GPS coordinates). The transportation matching system then matches the transportation request to a transportation provider computing device associated with a transportation provider. Based on matching the transportation computing device with the transportation request, the transportation matching system provides an electronic communication to the provider computing device that includes the pickup location and destination location. The provider can then transport the requestor from the pickup location to the destination location following digital instructions the provider computing device presents to the provider (e.g., computer-generated route directions presented on a display device). Given their growing popularity, a transportation matching system can receive hundreds if not thousands of transportation requests for a single geographic area, while managing a network of hundreds of thousands of provider computing devices as well as millions of requestor computing devices.
It is common for a transportation matching system to require a user to manually input both a pickup location and a destination location associated with a transportation request. This, however, leads to many technical inaccuracies and inefficiencies. For example, a user may not be familiar with a geographic area to accurately input a pickup location address. Furthermore, due to various factors, a GPS location provided by the user's mobile device may not be accurate. Accordingly, the transportation matching system often wastes system resources in correcting manually specified pickup locations listed in transportation requests and compensating for inaccurate GPS locations. This leads to delayed transportation request processing times, failed transportation requests, and inefficient system and device management.
Accordingly, a need exists for a transportation matching system capable of more effectively and efficiently determining pickup locations associated with transportation requests.